UNC swimmer makes own splash

If you were to take one glance at University of Northern Colorado’s Sierra Binek, you would think she was just an average college student.

Look again, this time with a little more intensity.

Binek is about as diverse as you can imagine, straying from the norm in a way that leaves a long-lasting impression.

“She’s definitely unique,” said Saree Hoopii, her teammate on the University of Northern Colorado women’s swim team. “At first, when she was a freshman, I figured she was just real focused and a soft-spoken girl.”

As the UNC women’s swim season gets under way with its season with its home opener being slotted for Nov. 19, Hoopii knows she was right.

Binek is definitely soft-spoken. The senior from Volcano, Hawaii, is continually focused, and she is driven to succeed. But she’s more than just that.

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She doesn’t carry a cell phone, an Ipod or leisure reading material like most students. And unlike other upperclassmen, she lives in the residence halls and doesn’t own a car.

She would rather hoof it to class and experience campus sights, and she’s more than willing to take on a difficult major.

Take an inventory of Binek’s backpack and you’re likely to find the normal load of books for a chemistry major — biology, physiology, micro-biology and calculus books.

“I like things that have to do with science,” Binek said. “I know that’s the field I’ll enter.”

Her interest in science didn’t come by chance, though. Her mother, Lori, is a nurse and her father, Richard, is a Pearl Harbor mechanic.

“My family likes challenges,” she said. “If you really look at something long enough and study it, it’s not as difficult as it seems.”

Binek methodically took on her class load as a freshman while trying to make the Bears’ team as a walk-on freestyler. As expected, both challenges began to take shape as she worked her gpa to a 4.0 and swam well enough to earn a scholarship.

“She’s one of those go-getters who just never stops,” UNC head women’s swim coach Nancy Hinrichs said. “She’s always talking about helping her family out too.”

Last year, Binek was accepted to pharmacology school but visited with Hinrichs to get a second opinion.

“She decided maybe she really didn’t want to be a pharmacist, and so she started exploring the idea of gong to optometry school after she graduates,” Hinrichs said.

This summer, Binek did an internship at Purdue University, performing research in the biomedical engineering department.

“My job was to optimize the perimeters and working with biomagnetic carriers,” she explained, using terminology you wouldn’t hear an average student use. “The best way to explain it is that there is an intravacular application with intravacular magnetic carriers, but if you add chemical groups to them, it can open the stentor to the arteries.”

The way Binek has it figured, she’ll eventually work in the clinical area of optometry.

“I plan to go to graduate school for optometry research, and see where that takes me,” Binek said.

She doesn’t plan to own a cell phone anytime soon though.

“I’ve never owned one,” she said. “I’m not sure people would even call me. I just don’t see a point in having one. If I had one, I’d probably be dependent on it and I don’t want to be dependent on anything.”